Effectively Heterologous Synthesis of Lovastatin in Aspergillus niger by Improved Supply of Precursor Monacolin J.
Lu Feifei F, Liu Qi Q, Qiu Yanqing Y, Zeng Xu X et al.
Using transformation-associated recombination (TAR) technology, a lovastatin biosynthetic gene cluster was assembled in Saccharomyces cerevisiae BY4741, in which pathway-related enzyme genes were controlled by strong fungal promoters and terminators. Using Aspergillus niger SH-2 as the starting strain, a copy of Monacolin J (MJ) and a copy of lovastatin expression cassette were integrated into its genome, MJ heterologous expression strains and lovastatin heterologous expression strains were successively constructed. To facilitate the synthesis of MJ and lovastatin, ATP-dependent citrate lyase (ACL) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) were overexpressed in the MJ- and lovastatin-engineered strains. For fermentation optimization, various carbon sources were tested to determine the best one. Furthermore, the roles of glutamic acid, methionine, and linoleic acid in the production of MJ and lovastatin were investigated. Finally, in a 500 mL shake flask with 100 mL of liquid medium, using hydrolyzed starch as the carbon source and adding 10 mM glutamate, a MJ titer of 1606 mg/L and a lovastatin of 1345 mg/L were obtained, and after overexpressing ACL and ACC enzymes in the MJ strain, a MJ titer of 1786 mg/L were obtained. During fed-batch fermentation in a 2-L bioreactor, the lovastatin yield reached 2915 mg/L.